by Naomi West
“You gotta let me help, man,” Smalls said as Cutter eased him back down into the chair. “This is as much my fault as anyone's.”
“’Cause you let your brother-in-arms blindside you?”
“Fuckin' A, Cutter,” Smalls hollered. “Lemme help you, man.”
“Fine, fine, just stop your yelling,” Cutter said as he offered him an arm and helped ease him up out of the chair. “We'll think of something. Meantime, we better check to make sure the stash is intact. No telling what Squirrel spilled to Wyland.”
Smalls put his weight on Cutter and slowly rose from the chair. Together, they crept down the hallway, back to the linen closet where they kept all the sheets and towels stored away. “Should be fine,” Smalls said. “I didn't hear any noise down this way.”
“You know, old man,” Cutter said as he opened the closet and reached inside, “them not coming over here is probably why you're still alive, old man.” On the right, just behind the door frame, was a small catch. He searched with his fingers, probing the area, until he found it. He pulled the latch till he felt a click, then shoved back a false wall they'd installed years ago. A small portal lead through the back.
He glanced back at his second-in-command, just to check on him, then pushed through the stacks of towels and sheets, and into the small secret compartment. The Vanguard had built this room a couple years after Cutter had joined up with the MC. He'd noticed while taking some measurements, and looking at the floor plans, that there was this small vacant space in the wall. Even if you were paying really close attention to the dimensions of the outside versus the inside, and really looking for a secret cubbyhole like this, you'd still have a real pain in the ass trying to find it.
Together, they turned it into their stash, the place where they kept their guns, ammo, and other contraband. It was a good hiding spot, Cutter thought. After all, what cop was going to look in the linen closet for a machine gun? He reached up and grabbed the pull cord for the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. It flared into brilliance, washing the small room with stark white light. Shotguns, submachine guns, handguns, rifles, pistols. They had it all, here, with crates and crates of ammo.
All untagged, untaxed, and completely illegal. And, most importantly, it was more than enough to take down a small banana republic.
Chapter 37
Liona
Liona didn't know how long she'd been out. Her sleep had been like a blanket of darkness, with no dreams or ideas of how she'd gotten there. All she knew about now was that her head was pounding, and the world seemed to move in slow motion behind her eyes. A slow spinning overtook her world, like she was laying back in the center of a merry-go-round and staring up at the sky. She didn't open her eyes, just squeezed them tighter and prayed the spins would go away.
With her eyes still shut, she reached out with her other senses to try and get her bearings. The smell of mildew and damp filled her nose, and she could hear dripping water off in the distance. At least that was a start. She couldn't tell where she was, but something about the place, about the resonance of the area, just made her feel as if she were in an old building. Perhaps in a basement, or a cavern of some sort, like one of those old speakeasy tunnels from the 20s. She remembered going down into one on a tour, back when she was a teenager. All the bricks, and the lights, and that cloying feel of the damp on her skin.
“You think she's coming to?” a man growled somewhere out there in the darkness, just beyond the edge of her senses. She didn't recognize the voice, but it reminded her of Cutter or Smalls. It gave her the impression of cruelty, though. Like the man who spoke was the type of kid who plucked the wings off houseflies.
“Nah, not yet,” another man replied.
“Tired of this bullshit, yet?” the first man asked.
“Long time ago, man. But, hey, this lawyer says he's gonna give us the run of the town. So, I'm fine sticking it out.”
Silence, for a moment.
“Think he'll give us a run of the girl, too?” the first man asked after a while.
“Dunno if West will, or not,” the other admitted. “I like 'em to be awake, personally. They got more fire in 'em, that way.”
One of them laughed as she drifted back into unconsciousness. This time, the dreams did come. Dreams of Cutter, with his strong hands running over her naked body. Of the two of them riding on the back of chopper, ripping and roaring over the scenery. They rode together through the day, through the night. The stars and planets spun over their heads in a surreal symphony of celestial movement, like it was a choreographed dance composed for just them. Then, as the sun rose again, Liona looked around and took in the sights.
Except, now, the landscape had been transformed into a twisted hellscape. The world, all ashen gray and bright fiery yellow, seemed to burn. She asked Cutter where they were, where they were going, but he didn't reply. He just kept riding. She pounded on his back, a feeling of dread filling the core of her being. She hit him again, over and over. Finally, he looked back but it wasn't Cutter, like she'd originally thought. Instead, it was Wyland's laughing visage.
She screamed to herself, tried to realize it was just a dream. To not worry, to just wake up and be done with it. Some deeper voice within herself warned her against waking, stopped her struggles to come up from her slumber. Here, Liona was safe. The world could pass her by, and she could wait for everything to be better. Because, here in the land of dreams, there was nothing to truly fear. Everything was nothing more than a figment of her drugged out imagination.
Another voice whispered, in the world of the waking, that the nightmares were real.
Chapter 38
Cutter
“You're dead serious about this, ain't you?” Smalls asked as Cutter piled up on the rec room table the last of the guns and ammo he'd selected. This was his fourth and final trip from the stash and he'd brought out every possible gun he thought he might use, along with a couple heavy duffel bags to haul all them in.
“Should I not be?” Cutter asked as he set a pump action twelve-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip on it.
“Just looks like you're fucking Rambo, or some shit.”
“At this point,” Cutter said as he picked up one of the rifles and took it over to another, less cluttered table and began to break it down, “really wish I was.”
“You scared?” Smalls asked as he set a hunting rifle, complete with scope and suppressor, down on the table next to him.
“Fuck yes,” Cutter said, glancing up. “But I get scared every time I go do something this stupid. Doubly, now, since Liona's life is on the line, too.”
“Scared is a good thing,” Smalls said. “Means you're ready to see tomorrow.”
They'd had this little pre-war pep talk more times than Cutter could count. Smalls was ex-military, Marines. You wouldn't have known it to look at him, but he was one of the best shots Cutter had ever seen.
“Gonna cover me, then?”
“Looks like it,” Smalls said.
Cutter nodded. “We'll wait till after dark, which gives another hour or so.”
“Dunno how many men they got, do we?” his second-in-command asked as he began to break down, clean, and oil the rifle with the kind of grace only hours and hours of regular practice can give you. Cutter shook his head.
“Doesn't really matter, does it? You'd be going in either way, wouldn't you?”
He nodded. “I can't let anything happen to her. And, besides, Wyland needs this payback. Gonna be honest. I don't care if the Vanguard fall apart after this or not. I just want him dead.”
“Fair enough,” Smalls said, nodding solemnly. “Soon as sunset rolls 'round, we'll head out.”
“What're we gonna take? You can't ride out with your leg busted. 'Sides, we're bringing a whole goddamn arsenal with us.”
“Need something stealthy,” Smalls said, deep in thought as he cleaned out the barrel of the rifle with the long swab. “I was thinking we take my Prius.”
“Quiet, a
nd efficient,” Cutter nodded at the joke Smalls had made in spite of the seriousness of what they were walking into. He stopped, though, and looked at Smalls. “Oh, shit, brother. You're serious, aren't you?”
“Yeah,” Smalls said, locking the barrel back into the receiver. “You think of something that's quieter?”
Chapter 39
Liona
Liona came to again in the darkness of her cell. She was more aware this time around, enough so that she realized it wasn't a jail cell, as such. More like a utility closet, in somewhere like a boiler room. She was laid out on a hard cotton cot with a scratchy pillow beneath her head, the kind you'd get at a cheap motel that had complimentary cans of roach spray in each room.
She groaned loudly, put a hand to her head to try and stop the painful throbbing.
“Ho, ho,” said one of the voices from earlier, “looks like girly-girl’s awake here.”
“Oh, man,” added the other, “would you look at that? She is a fine piece, that's for damn sure. Even prettier awake.”
She opened her eyes, groaning again as the weak light from a burning kerosene lamp shot up a flare of pain in her head. She could make out two barely visible forms standing against the wall, now. Both wore biker vests, like Cutter's and Smalls's, but they were all the wrong colors.
“Don't spook her now,” said one of the men, the one still up against the wall.
“I ain't gonna spook her,” replied the one approaching her. “Gonna just take it real nice and slow, so she can get used to us. Like a scared kitten.”
As the man came closer the door handle jiggled. Quick as could be, he came to a complete halt and shot upright. In two long strides, he was back at his old spot next to his friend. His buddy chuckled a little as the door creaked open.
“Liona?” a familiar voice asked as the form stepped into the room. “You feeling okay, sweetie? You waking up alright?”
Wyland. Wyland West. Just as dapper looking as ever, clad in his perfectly tailored suit.
She recoiled, her body instinctively curling up into a protective ball. “Go away,” she slurred. “Just, leave me alone.”
“Well,” Wyland said soothingly. “I'll just come back in a little while, okay sweetie? Once you're feeling better, and not so loopy?”
“Fuck off, Wyland,” she groaned.
He turned to the two other men. “Keep an eye on her,” he snapped, before leaving the room again.
The men followed him with their gazes till the door shut quietly behind him, then she felt as they swiveled back to her. A grin began to grow on the face of the man who'd come closest to her, but the other man quickly slapped him.
“Nah, dude,” he said. “Not this time.”
Chapter 40
Cutter
A moonless night fell over the small town. Cutter and Smalls had scoped out the condemned high school before the sun went down, using binoculars to count men and map out routes. These were bikers, basically just goons, not military or even security guards. They were as undisciplined as any of the Vanguard would have been in the same situation, and neither men expected them to be too much of a worry if they were taken on individually.
“You figure a trained soldier on guard duty like this,” Smalls had said while he was seated in the driver’s seat with Cutter checking out the building, “can keep his attention for just a few hours at a time in a warzone situation. These guys can probably keep theirs fixed for what, maybe thirty minutes?”
“I see one sneaking a drink from a flask already, Smalls.”
“Clearly, they ain't seeing you as a threat. If they’re even expecting you at all,”
“Would you? Hell, we knew Wyland was a threat, and look what happened to us.”
“Good point, brother,” Smalls had said.
Then, they'd waited till the sun went down. As it dropped below the horizon, they climbed out of Smalls's Prius and started to unload everything. A suppressed rifle for Smalls, his precious 30.06 that was dropped inside an AR-15 style body.
For Cutter, a pistol with a suppressor, extra clips of ammunition, and one homemade canister of tear gas he'd bought off some anarchist kid about a year back. He'd purchased two at the time, and used one as a gag during a hazing ritual. It had, surprisingly, worked pretty well. Almost too well, actually, and had ended up scaring off one of the prospects. He hadn't been able to find a use for the second one grenade until now.
Then there were his knives. They hadn't nicknamed him Cutter for nothing. As he crouched in a tangle of shrubbery near one of the side doors, with two Bolt Riders hanging out and nominally guarding it, he realized that this was the moment their assumptions about these guy's capabilities were going to be put to the test.
Smalls was off in the distance, crouched up on a hill with a clear line of the sight on the building. He'd been a pretty stellar shot in his USMC days, and he'd kept up the practice over the years. But, if he was off by just a little bit, this could go very wrong for Cutter, very quickly. As Cutter crept through the brush, his blackened knife gripped in one hand, he prayed Smalls was as good of a shot under pressure as he was on the range.
His eyes fixated on the two men, who were laughing and jostling back and forth, he crept closer. Smalls would be able to see him from this vantage point, and they'd agreed that it was up to him to start this little shindig.
Smalls fired. His rifle wasn't any louder than a cap gun, and all Cutter heard was the sound of mosquito whizzing by. The man farthest from Cutter reached up, almost idly, and put a hand to his neck. Even in the dim light, Cutter could see the look of horror on his face as he pulled his bloody hand away and looked at it. His eyes were wide in terror, and he clutched his hand back to his throat as his partner stared in shock.
The man Smalls had shot stumbled a little, landing against his buddy. His friend tried to steady him. “Dude? Dude! What the fuck, man? What happened?”
Cutter came up out of the bushes in a flash, his dark knife not even glinting in the low light. It was like cool black ice on a winter night as he came up behind the uninjured man and put a hand over his mouth, pulling him back into the bushes. The man screamed into his hand, but his wordless cry was muffled as Cutter pulled him out of sight.
He didn't bother speaking to him. Didn't bother threatening, or asking for information. He brought his knife up, cut deep into the man's throat, and slid it across in a horizontal arc. He opened up his jugular artery, unleashing a warm flood of blood, as he kept his hand clutched across his mouth. The man kicked, once, twice, and struggled for a long, tense moment before falling silent and ending his struggle.
Cutter had killed before. Sometimes, in this line of work there was a certain amount of murder that had to happen to get a point across, or to protect what was yours. This, though, felt personal to the Vanguard president. This man had been at least partly responsible for taking Liona, whether he knew it or not.
He dropped the fresh corpse to the ground, hiding him in the bushes. He slipped out, checked the man Smalls had shot, then pulled him back to join his comrade. With both of them hidden away, he gave a thumbs up to the unseen Smalls, and slipped through the side doors. On his way through, he glanced down at the concrete. A few drops of blood had splattered there, but nothing overtly noticeable. If anyone else came through, they'd just think the two guys had fucked off for a beer or something.
Now in the hallway, he dropped to a crouch and listened. From here on, he was going to be alone with no cover from Smalls. Nevertheless, Smalls had his own part of the plan to carry out. He was to start dropping any singular out of the way Bolt Riders he happened to see. Maybe he could thin out the herd a little bit before word got out that Cutter was in the building.
Chapter 41
Liona
“Sweetie?” Wyland asked, his voice high-fructose levels of sweet. If Liona could have eaten his words, she would have gotten a cavity. “You feeling any better?” He was sitting on the cot, now, with his arms protectively over her. Behind him, the two men s
till flanked the doorway, their expressions a mix of dourness and boredom.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You almost ready to come home?” he asked, reaching out to brush the hair from her face.
She flinched back again. “Wyland,” she said, “I don't know why you think I'd want to go home with you.”
“Well,” he said, “because we love each other. We need each other. Isn't that right?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You don't get it, I left you. For Desmond.”
He smiled and shook his head, laughing. “Oh, sweetie, he just had you fooled, like he has everyone fooled. He just wanted you to get to me, that's all. I started going after that biker gang of his long before our wedding, before you left me.”